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To support more complex and robust online services, enterprise-class applications prefer to interconnect multiple servers as the pedestal to enhance the system's interoperability. However, the multiserver architecture always struggles to reconcile the trade-off between convenience and security, leaving users exposed to a variety of network attack threats. Existing security authentication schemes based on the Chebyshev Chaotic Map for multiserver architectures cannot provide three-factor (including password, biometric feature, and smart card) security. Therefore, we propose a novel Physical-Unclonable-Function-based Lightweight Three-Factor Authentication (PUF-LTA) scheme, which can achieve three-factor security. The PUF-LTA scheme mainly includes two components: (1) PUF-assisted registration and (2) lightweight mutual authentication with one-time interaction. During the PUF-assisted registration process, to defend against side-channel attacks on smart cards, the login credentials of users are XORed with the unique identifier generated by the PUF so that the adversary cannot obtain these secret login credentials. During the lightweight mutual authentication process, we combine the Chebyshev polynomial map and symmetric encryption/decryption to negotiate the session key between users and servers, which only needs one interaction. The security performance of PUF-LTA is theoretically proved by leveraging the random oracle model. In contrast with relevant multiserver authentication schemes, PUF-LTA is more efficient and suitable for resource-constrained multiserver environments because it can ensure secure three-factor authentication and support flexible biometrics and password updates with less computation cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Titanium carbide (TiC x) films were deposited by reactively sputtering Ti target with varied methane (CH 4) flow rates using an unbalanced magnetron sputtering equipment operating in conventional (CMS) and plasma-enhanced (PEMS) mode. The microstructure and properties of the TiC x films were mainly scrutinized with X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, nano indentation, and ball-on-disk tribo-test. As the CH 4 flow rate is increased from 4 to 16 sccm, x in the TiC x films deposited by PEMS and CMS is gradually increased from 0.28 to 0.96 and 0.28 to 0.73, respectively; and the concentration of TiC phase in the films rises. A densified microstructure with strong preferred growth is observed in the PEMS-deposited films, while a loose columnar microstructure with almost random growth exists in the CMS-deposited films. When the CH 4 flow rate is increased, the hardness of the films deposited by PEMS is firstly increased and then decreased, and reaches a maximum value of 29.6 GPa; but that of CMS-TiC x film is fluctuated below 10.6 GPa. The friction coefficient of TiC x -coated samples against pure aluminum is gradually increased with increasing CH 4 flow rate from 4 to 14 sccm, accompanied by a reduction of the aluminum adhesion. The wear rate of the TiC x -coated samples as a function of the CH 4 flow rate is firstly decreased and then increased. The lowest wear rate of the PEMS-prepared samples is 7.2 × 10−16 m3/(N·m) obtained at a CH 4 flow rate of 14 sccm, while that of the CMS-prepared samples is 9.3 × 10−15 m3/(N·m) obtained at 12 sccm. Therefore, PEMS is a promising method to prepare TiC x films with a good combination of the mechanical properties and wear-resistance against pure aluminum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The prognostic value of cytokeratin 19 fragment (CYFRA 21 − 1) and Ki67 in advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients with wild-type epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) remains to be explored. Methods: In this study, 983 primary NSCLC patients from January 2016 to December 2019 were retrospectively reviewed. Finally, 117 advanced NSCLC patients with wild-type EGFR and 37 patients with EGFR mutation were included and prognostic value of CYFRA 21 − 1 and Ki67 were also identified. Results: The patients age, smoking history and the Eastern Corporative Oncology Group (ECOG) performance scores were significantly different between CYFRA21-1 positive and negative groups (p < 0.05), while no significant differences were found in Ki67 high and low groups. The results of over survival (OS) demonstrated that patients with CYFRA21-1 positive had markedly shorter survival time than CYFRA21-1 negative (p < 0.001, For whole cohorts; p = 0.002, For wild-type EGFR). Besides, patients with wild-type EGFR also had shorter survival times than Ki67 high group. Moreover, In CYFRA 21 − 1 positive group, patients with Ki67 high had obviously shorter survival time compared to patients with Ki67 low (median: 24vs23.5 months; p = 0.048). However, Ki67 could not be used as an adverse risk factor for patients with EGFR mutation. Multivariate cox analysis showed that age (HR, 1.031; 95%CI, 1.003 ~ 1.006; p = 0.028), Histopathology (HR, 1.760; 95%CI,1.152 ~ 2.690; p = 0.009), CYFRA 21 − 1 (HR, 2.304; 95%CI,1.224 ~ 4.335; p = 0.01) and Ki67 (HR, 2.130; 95%CI,1.242 ~ 3.652; p = 0.006) served as independent prognostic risk factor for advanced NSCLC patients. Conclusions: Our finding indicated that CYFRA 21 − 1 was an independent prognostic factor for advanced NSCLC patients and Ki67 status could be a risk stratification marker for CYFRA 21 − 1 positive NSCLC patients with wild-type EGFR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

46,XY disorders of sex development (DSD) present with diverse phenotypes and complicated genetic causes. Precise genetic diagnosis contributes to accurate management, and targeted next-generation sequencing (NGS) and whole-exome sequencing are powerful tools for investigating DSD. However, the prevalent variants resulting in 46,XY DSD remain unclear, especially those associated with mild forms, such as isolated hypospadias, inguinal cryptorchidism, and micropenis. From 2019 to 2021, 74 patients with 46,XY DSD (48 typical and 26 mild) from the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University were enrolled in our cohort study for targeted NGS or whole-exome sequencing. Our targeted 46,XY DSD panel included 108 genes involved in disorders of gonadal development and differentiation, steroid hormone synthesis and activation, persistent Müllerian duct syndrome, idiopathic hypogonadotropic hypogonadism, syndromic disorder, and others. Variants were classified as pathogenic, likely pathogenic, variant of uncertain significance, likely benign, or benign following the American College of Medical Genetics guidelines. As a result, 28 of 74 (37.8%) patients with pathogenic and/or likely pathogenic variants acquired genetic diagnoses. The Mild DSD patients acquired a diagnosis rate of 30.7%. We detected 44 variants in 28 DSD genes from 31 patients, including 33 novel and 11 reported variants. Heterozygous (65%) and missense (70.5%) variants were the most common. Variants associated with steroid hormone synthesis and activation were the main genetic causes of 46,XY DSD. In conclusion, 46,XY DSD manifests as a series of complicated polygenetic diseases. NGS reveals prevalent variants and improves the genetic diagnoses of 46,XY DSD, regardless of severity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. This work used bioinformatic analysis to identify the relationship between periodontitis (PD) and aging, which could lead to new treatments for periodontal disease in the elderly. Method. Four microarray datasets were obtained from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database and analyzed in R language to identify differentially expressed genes (DEGs). The common DEGs of PD and aging were evaluated as key genes in this investigation by a Venn diagram. These common DEGs were analyzed through additional experiments and analysis, such as pathway analysis and enrichment analysis, and a network of protein-protein interactions (PPIs) was constructed. Cytoscape was used to visualize hub genes and critical modules based on the PPI network. Interaction of TF-genes and miRNAs with hub genes is identified. Result. 84 common DEGs were found between PD and aging. Cytohubba was performed on the PPI network obtained from STRING tool, and the top 10 genes (MMP2, PDGFRB, CTGF, CD34, CXCL12, VIM, IL2RG, ACTA2, COL4A2, and TAGLN) were selected as hub genes. VIM may be a potential biomarker in the analysis of linked hub gene regulatory networks, and hsa-mir-21 and hsa-mir-125b are predicted to be associated in PD and aging. Conclusion. This study investigated the key genes and pathways interactions between PD and aging, which may help reveal the correlation between PD and aging. The current research results are obtained by prediction, and follow-up biological experiments are required for further verification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Commutation failures (CFs) including repetitive CFs (RCFs) are frequently occurring faults in line commutated converter based high voltage direct current (LCC-HVDC) systems. Consequently, sending end system will suffer transient voltage disturbances (TVD) with a characteristic of “first reduce then rise and may repeat”. Due to the complex interaction process of TVD, the electromagnetic process behind this phenomenon cannot be easily explained, which imposes great challenges on the development of mitigation strategies. Given this, this paper provides a deep insight into the mechanism and the impact factors of the TVD caused by CFs and RCFs. The numerical relationship between the transmitting power and the TVD is derived. Research results revealed that the transient process after fault can be segmented into five stages. In each stage, the control interactions among HVDC controllers and power interactions at the PCC are analyzed. Besides, we discussed the TVD under RCFs in detail. Several indices are further proposed to facilitate the characterization of the TVD, and main control loops of HVDC that have impacts on the characteristics of TVD are thereby studied. Finally, the mathematical relationship between wind farm power and the TVD is derived to quantify the impact of wind farms on the TVD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to breed broccoli and other Brassica materials to be highly resistant to clubroot disease, 41 Brassicaceae varieties were developed and identified between 2020 and 2021. Seven known clubroot genes were used for screening these materials. In addition, the resistant and susceptible broccoli cultivars were designed for observing their differences in the infection process with Plasmodiophora brassicae. The results showed that 90% of total materials had carried more than two clubroot resistance genes: one material carried two disease resistance genes, four materials carried seven genes for clubroot resistance, two materials carried six genes for clubroot resistance, and in total 32% of these materials carried five genes for clubroot resistance. As a result, several new genotypes of Brassicaceae germplasm were firstly created and obtained based on distant hybridization and identification of loci conferring resistance against Plasmodiophora brassicae in this study. We found and revealed that similar infection models of Plasmodiophora brassicae occurred in susceptible and resistant cultivars of broccoli, but differences in infection efficiency of Plasmodiophora brassicae also existed in both materials. For resistant broccoli plants, a small number of conidia formed in the root hair, and only a few spores could enter the cortex without forming sporangia while sporangia could form in susceptible plants. Our study could provide critical Brassica materials for breeding resistant varieties and new insight into understanding the mechanism of plant resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Headache accompanying ischemic stroke is considered an independent predictor of neurological deterioration. This meta-analysis aims to estimate the prevalence of ischemic stroke-related headaches and identify its risk factors in China. Methods: PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library database, Web of Science, PsycINFO, and four Chinese databases for the related publications were searched. Two researchers independently selected the literature, extracted the relevant data, and assessed its methodological quality. The meta-analysis applied a random-effects model with R software to calculate the pooled prevalence of ischemic stroke-related headaches in Chinese patients, and to merge the odds ratio (OR) of risk factors. Subgroup analysis, sensitivity analysis, and meta-regression analysis were conducted. Publication bias was assessed by a funnel plot and Egger test. Results: Ninety-eight studies were eligible for inclusion. The overall pooled prevalence of ischemic stroke-related headache was 18.9%. Subgroup analysis showed that the prevalence of ischemic stroke related-headaches was higher among studies using self-report to diagnosis headache (18.9%; 95%CI, 8.9% to 40.2%), and those focused on age ≥ 55 years (19.7%; 95%CI, 14.9% to 25.9%), rural settings (24.9%; 95%CI, 19.7% to 31.6%). There were no significant differences in the headache prevalence between studies in the south and north, and inland and coastal studies. The prevalence of pre onset headache (13.9%) and tension-type headache (15.5%) and was higher compared with other types. History of headache (OR = 3.24; 95%CI, 2.26 to 4.65.), female gender (OR = 2.06; 95%CI, 1.44 to 2.96.), midbrain lesions (OR = 3.56; 95%CI, 1.86 to 6.83.), and posterior circulation stroke (OR = 2.13; 95%CI, 1.14 to 4.32) were major risk factors. Conclusion: The prevalence of ischemic stroke-associated headache is high in China. In addition, women, presence of midbrain lesions, posterior circulation stroke and a history of migraine were high-risk factors for ischemic stroke-related headaches. Designing effective interventions to prevent or alleviated headaches is necessary to promote patients' neurological recovery and quality of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exosomes are membranous structures secreted by nearly all cell types. As critical messengers for intercellular communication, exosomes deliver bioactive cargoes to recipient cells and are involved in multiple physiopathological processes, including immunoregulation. Our pioneering study revealed that cancer cells release programmed death-ligand 1-positive exosomes into the circulation to counter antitumor immunity systemically via T cells. Tumor cell-derived exosomes (TDEs) also play an immunosuppressive role in other immunocytes, including dendritic cells (DCs), macrophages, natural killer (NK) cells, and myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs). Moreover, exosomes secreted by nontumor cells in the tumor microenvironments (TMEs) also exert immunosuppressive effects. This review systematically provides a summary of the immunosuppression induced by exosomes in tumor microenvironments, which modulates tumor growth, invasion, metastasis, and immunotherapeutic resistance. Additionally, therapeutic strategies targeting the molecular mechanism of exosome-mediated tumor development, which may help overcome several obstacles, such as immune tolerance in oncotherapy, are also discussed. Detailed knowledge of the specific functions of exosomes in antitumor immunity may contribute to the development of innovative treatments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Conventional chemotherapy has poor efficacy in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) which is highly heterogeneous and aggressive. Imaging-guided therapy is usually combined with diverse treatment modalities, could realize the integration of diagnosis and treatments. Therefore, the primary challenge for combinational therapy is designing proper delivery systems to accomplish multiple synergistic effects. Results: Herein, a facile nanoplatform was manufactured to fulfill the all-in-one approaches for TNBC combinational therapy. Fe3+-based metal-phenolic networks (MPNs) with bovine serum albumin (BSA) modification served as drug delivery carriers to encapsulate bleomycin (BLM), forming BFE@BSA NPs. The self-assembly mechanism, pH-responsive drug release behavior, and other physicochemical properties of this system were characterized. The potential of BFE@BSA NPs as photothermal transduction agents and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast agents was explored. The synergistic anti-tumor effects consisting of BLM-induced chemotherapy, Fenton reactions-mediated chemodynamic therapy, and photothermal therapy-induced apoptosis were studied both in vitro and in vivo. Once internalized into tumor cells, released BLM could cause DNA damage, while Fenton reactions were initiated to produce highly toxic •OH. Upon laser irradiation, BFE@BSA NPs could convert light into heat to achieve synergistic effects. After intravenous administration, BFE@BSA NPs exhibited great therapeutic effects in 4T1 tumor xenograft model. Moreover, as T1-weighted MRI contrast agents, BFE@BSA NPs could provide diagnosis and treatment monitoring for individualized precise therapy. Conclusions: A nano-system that integrated imaging and combinational therapy (chemotherapy, chemodynamic therapy and photothermal therapy) were developed to kill the tumor and monitor therapeutic efficacy. This strategy provided an all-in-one theranostic nanoplatform for MRI-guided combinational therapy against TNBC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multispectral and hyperspectral image fusion (MS/HS fusion) aims to fuse a high-resolution multispectral (HrMS) and a low-resolution hyperspectral (LrHS) images to generate a high-resolution hyperspectral (HrHS) image, which has become one of the most commonly addressed problems for hyperspectral image processing. In this paper, we specifically designed a network architecture for the MS/HS fusion task, called MHF-net, which not only contains clear interpretability, but also reasonably embeds the well studied linear mapping that links the HrHS image to HrMS and LrHS images. In particular, we first construct an MS/HS fusion model which merges the generalization models of low-resolution images and the low-rankness prior knowledge of HrHS image into a concise formulation, and then we build the proposed network by unfolding the proximal gradient algorithm for solving the proposed model. As a result of the careful design for the model and algorithm, all the fundamental modules in MHF-net have clear physical meanings and are thus easily interpretable. This not only greatly facilitates an easy intuitive observation and analysis on what happens inside the network, but also leads to its good generalization capability. Based on the architecture of MHF-net, we further design two deep learning regimes for two general cases in practice: consistent MHF-net and blind MHF-net. The former is suitable in the case that spectral and spatial responses of training and testing data are consistent, just as considered in most of the pervious general supervised MS/HS fusion researches. The latter ensures a good generalization in mismatch cases of spectral and spatial responses in training and testing data, and even across different sensors, which is generally considered to be a challenging issue for general supervised MS/HS fusion methods. Experimental results on simulated and real data substantiate the superiority of our method both visually and quantitatively as compared with state-of-the-art methods along this line of research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Cervical cancer (CC) is one of the most common gynecological tumors that threatens women's health and lives. Aberrant expression of PIWI-interacting RNA (piRNA) is closely related with a range of cancers and can serve as a tumor promoter or suppressor in proliferation, migration and invasion. In this study, the aim was not only to discover differential expression of piRNA in CC tissue (CC cells) and normal cervical tissue (normal cervical epithelium cells), but also to investigate the biological function and action mechanism of piRNA in CC.Methods: The DESeq2 approach was used to estimate fold change in piRNA between CC tissue and normal cervical tissue. The relative expressions of piRNAs (piRNA-20657, piRNA-20497, piRNA-14633 and piRNA-13350) and RNA m6A methyltransferases/demethylases were detected using RT-qPCR. After intervention with piRNA-14633 and METTL14 expression, the viability of CaSki cells and SiHa cells was detected by CCK8. CC cell proliferation was detected by colony formation assay. Apoptosis rate and cell cycle were detected by flow cytometry. Transwell assay was performed to detect cell migration and invasion. EpiQuik m6A RNA Methylation Quantification Kit was used to evaluate m6A RNA methylation levels. Expression of methyltransferase-like protein 14 (METTL14), PIWIL-proteins and CYP1B1 were detected by RT-qPCR and western blot. The effect of piRNA-14633 on METTL14 was evaluated by a dual-luciferase reporter assay. The in vivo effects of piRNA-14633 on CC was assessed by nude mice experiments.Results: piRNA-14633 showed high expression in CC tissues and cells, piRNA-14633 mimic (piRNA-14633 overexpression) promoted viability, proliferation, migration and invasion of CaSki cells and SiHa cells. Besides, piRNA-14633 mimic increased m6A RNA methylation levels and METTL14 mRNA stability. Results of dual luciferase reporter assays indicated that METTL14 was a directed target gene of piRNA-14633. Knockdown of METTL14 with siRNA attenuated proliferation, migration and invasion of CC cells. piRNA-14633 increased CYP1B1 expression, while silencing of METTL14 impaired its expression. The effect of piRNA overexpression on METTL14 expression has concentration-dependent characteristics. Results from in vivo experiment indicated that piRNA-14633 promoted cervical tumor growth.Conclusion: piRNA-14633 promotes proliferation, migration and invasion of CC cells by METTL14/CYP1B1 signaling axis, highlighting the important role of piRNA-14633 in CC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Synthetic chemotactic micro/nanomotors are envisioned to actively 'seek out' targets by following specific chemicals, but they are mainly powered by bioincompatible fuels and only show pseudochemotaxis (or advanced chemokinesis) due to their weak self-reorientation capabilities. Here we demonstrate that synthetic ZnO-based Janus micromotors can be powered by the alternative biocompatible fuel of CO2, and further provide the first example of self-reorientation-induced biomimetic chemotaxis using them. The ZnO-based micromotors are highly sensitive to dissolved CO2 in water, which enables the corrosion of ZnO to continuously occur by providing H+ through hydration. Thus, they can autonomously move even in water exposed to air based on self-diffusiophoresis. Furthermore, they can sense the local CO2 gradient and perform positive chemotaxis by self-reorientations under the phoretic torque. Our discovery opens a gate to developing intelligent micro/nanomotors powered by, and sensitive to, biocompatible atmospheric or endogenous gaseous chemicals for biomedical and environmental applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates a new DC voltage sag compensating scheme by using hybrid energy storage (HES) technology involved with one superconducting magnetic energy storage (SMES) unit and one battery energy storage (BES) unit. Two fault simulations of power supply fluctuation and sensitive load fluctuation are carried out to evaluate the dynamic voltage and power smoothing behaviours. The results obtained show that this HES-based DC voltage sag compensator has the ability to suppress the discharging / charging current overshoots for the BES unit and to enlarge the voltage compensating time for the SMES simultaneously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Spindle cell carcinoma (SpCC) is a rare tumor type with poor prognosis, and standard treatment modalities are not available yet. However, large-scale studies on this topic are sparse. In this study, data from the surveillance, epidemiology, and end results (SEER) database were used to determine cancer-specific survival (CSS) rates of SpCC and to investigate the impact of different therapeutic strategies including surgery with or without chemotherapy, radiotherapy, or chemoradiotherapy on patient outcome.Methods: A total of 665 cases of SpCC, diagnosed from 1996 to 2015, were extracted from the SEER database. Kaplan-Meier survival curves and log-rank tests were used to assess CSS rates and differences on survival curves. Multiple COX-proportional hazards models were used to analyze the association between various treatments and prognosis of SpCC patients classified by organs or systems.Results: Different treatments for SpCC in different organ or system were associated with prognosis of SpCC patients. Surgery alone exhibits survival benefit, whereas adjuvant therapy fails to show survival benefit for patients with SpCC.Conclusions: The prognosis of SpCC patients varied significantly with different clinical treatments. Adjuvant radiotherapy or chemotherapy did not show survival benefit, even increasing the risk of mortality for SpCC patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For scalar theories accommodating spherically symmetric Q-balls, there are also towers of quasi-stable composite Q-balls, called charge swapping Q-balls (CSQs). We investigate the properties, particularly the lifetimes, of these long-lived CSQs in 2+1D and 3+1D using numerical simulations with efficient second order absorbing boundary conditions. We find that the evolution of a CSQ typically consists of 4 distinct stages: initial relaxation, first plateau (CSQ stage), fast decay and second plateau (oscillon stage). We chart the lifetimes of CSQs for different parameters of the initial conditions and of the potential, and show the attractor behavior and other properties of the CSQs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Smart city can improve the efficiency of managing assets and resources, optimize urban services and improve the quality of citizens' life. Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) can solve many problems in smart city, such as smart transportation, smart healthcare and smart energy. However, security and privacy are the biggest challenges for WSN. Recently, Banerjee et al. proposed a security-enhanced authentication and key agreement scheme for WSN, but their scheme cannot resist offline password guessing attack, impersonation attack, and does not achieve session key secrecy, identity unlinkability, and perfect forward secrecy. In order to fix these flaws, a secure and privacy-preserving authentication protocol for WSN in smart city is proposed. We prove the security of the proposed protocol by using applied pi calculus-based formal verification tool ProVerif and show that it has high computational efficiency by comparison with some related schemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a chronic degenerative disease of the bone and joints. Immune-related genes and immune cell infiltration are important in OA development. We analyzed immune-related genes and immune infiltrates to identify OA diagnostic markers. The datasets GSE51588, GSE55235, GSE55457, GSE82107, and GSE114007 were downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus database. First, R software was used to identify differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and differentially expressed immune-related genes (DEIRGs), and functional correlation analysis was conducted. Second, CIBERSORT was used to evaluate infiltration of immune cells in OA tissue. Finally, the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator logistic regression algorithm and support vector machine-recurrent feature elimination algorithm were used to screen and verify diagnostic markers of OA. A total of 711 DEGs and 270 DEIRGs were identified in this study. Functional enrichment analysis showed that the DEGs and DEIRGs are closely related to cellular calcium ion homeostasis, ion channel complexes, chemokine signaling pathways, and JAK-STAT signaling pathways. Differential analysis of immune cell infiltration showed that M1 macrophage infiltration was increased but that mast cell and neutrophil infiltration were decreased in OA samples. The machine learning algorithm cross-identified 15 biomarkers (BTC, PSMD8, TLR3, IL7, APOD, CIITA, IFIH1, CDC42, FGF9, TNFAIP3, CX3CR1, ERAP2, SEMA3D, MPO, and plasma cells). According to pass validation, all 15 biomarkers had high diagnostic efficacy (AUC > 0.7), and the diagnostic efficiency was higher when the 15 biomarkers were fitted into one variable (AUC = 0.758). We developed 15 biomarkers for OA diagnosis. The findings provide a new understanding of the molecular mechanism of OA from the perspective of immunology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Shimian Neoproterozoic plutons are located on the western margin of the Yangtze Block and are important for reconstructing the tectonic environment of this region. We present in situ zircon LA–ICP–MS U–Pb geochronological and Hf isotopic analyses for the plutons, as well as whole‐rock major‐ and trace‐element compositions. The monzogranite and syenogranite yield concordant ages of 773.6 ± 5.6 Ma and 812.2 ± 1.8 Ma, respectively, which indicates that they formed during the Tonian of the Neoproterozoic. The samples have very similar geochemistry, with high SiO2 (71.45–75.46 wt%) and Al2O3 (12.38–14.36 wt%) contents. The samples have a geochemical characteristics typical of peraluminous A‐type granites, including high Ga/Al and Rb/Sr ratios and elevated contents of high‐field‐strength elements. The samples also display high Rb/Sr (13.9–23.0) and Rb/Nb (12.5–19.2) ratios. The monzogranite and syenogranite yield positive εHf(t) values (+1.6 to +9.4 and + 5.2 to +9.8, respectively) and T2DM ages of 1.54–1.22 Ga and 1.51–1.21 Ga, respectively, which indicates that they were derived from partial melting of Mesoproterozoic crust or contamination with upper mantle. We propose that the syenogranite and monzogranite formed in a syn‐orogenic extensional setting during the Tonian period and that continuous subduction was responsible for the Neoproterozoic magmatic activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Evaluate the effect of ultrasound combined with low temperature pretreatment on wine. • Pretreatment could increase the contents of anthocyanins and phenols. • Pretreatment affected the color of wine. • Pretreatment significantly improve its antioxidant capacity. • Pretreatment could affect the volatile components and improve the aftertaste. Ultrasound combined with low temperature treatment is a new food processing technology. In this study, low temperature, three ultrasound power levels, and their combinations were adopted in the must before fermentation to study their effects on Merlot red wine. The results showed that ultrasound combined with low temperature pretreatment increased the total and monomer contents of anthocyanins and phenols, affected the color of the wine, and significantly increased its antioxidant capacity. In particular, 240 W of ultrasound combined with low temperature pretreatment reduced the bad odors (caprylic acid, benzaldehyde, and 1-ethanol content) and improved the flower and fruit aroma (1-octanol and phenethyl acetate), as well as the aftertaste, thus improving the quality of the wine. Ultrasound combined with low temperature pretreatment positively affected the quality of Merlot red wine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective. To explore the potential biological roles of long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) RNCR3 in human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Methods. First, the expression of RNCR3 was detected by qRT-PCR. Then, in vitro experiments were performed to investigate the effects of RNCR3 on the proliferation, cell cycle, migration, and invasion of HCC cells, while the effects of RNCR3 on HCC tumor growth and metastasis were investigated using in vivo experiments. Finally, western blot was used to study the activation of the Akt/GSK3β signaling pathway. Results. RNCR3 was highly expressed in both HCC tissues and cells, and the expression of RNCR3 was closely related to tumor size, tumor number, TNM stage, and overall survival time. In vitro, RNCR3 served as an oncogene to promote cell proliferation, migration, and invasion, and in vivo, RNCR3 promoted the growth and metastasis of HCC tumors. In terms of mechanism, RNCR3 induced the phosphorylation of Akt (thr308 and ser473) and GSK3β (ser9) but decreased the expression of GSK3β, which activated the Akt/GSK3β signaling pathway. Conclusion. The high expression of lncRNA RNCR3 in HCC can promote the proliferation, migration, invasion, growth, and metastasis of HCC by activating the NF-κB signaling pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The total variation (TV) is a powerful regularization term encoding the local smoothness prior structure underlying images. By combining the TV regularization term with low rank prior, the 3D total variation (3DTV) regularizer has achieved advanced performance in general hyperspectral image (HSI) processing tasks. Intrinsically, 3DTV assumes i.i.d. sparsity structures on all bands of the gradient maps calculated along the spectrum and space of an HSI. This, however, largely deviates from the real-world cases, where the gradient maps generally have different while correlated gradient map structures across all bands. To alleviate this issue, we propose an enhanced 3DTV (E-3DTV) regularization term beyond the conventional. Instead of imposing sparsity on gradient maps themselves, the new term calculates sparsity on the subspace bases on gradient maps along all bands of an HSI, which naturally encodes the correlation and difference among all these bands, and thus more faithfully reflects the insightful configurations of an HSI. The E-3DTV term can easily replace the conventional 3DTV term and be embedded into an HSI processing model to ameliorate its performance. We made such attempts on two typical related tasks: HSI denoising and compressed sensing. The superiority of our proposed method is substantiated by extensive experiments on synthetic and real HSI data, visually and quantitatively on both tasks, as compared with current state-of-the-arts. The code of our algorithm is released at https://github.com/andrew-pengjj/Enhanced-3DTV.git. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Cadmium (Cd) is an environmental pollutant that leads to nephrotoxicity. However, the mechanisms of Cd-induced glomerular injury have not been fully clarified. Von Willebrand factor (vWF) and occludin are important endothelial cell markers in renal vasculature. In this study, the effects of Cd on the vWF and occludin expression in mouse glomeruli was investigated. Objectives: The goal of this study was to analyze the expression of von Willebrand factor and occludin in glomerular endothelial cells of tumor necrosis factor-α−/− (TNF-α−/−) mice after treatment with Cd. Material and methods: C57BL6/J wild-type (WT) mice and TNF-α−/− mice (n = 6) were treated with Cd, and the kidney tissues were collected. The expression of von Willebrand factor and occludin was detected by using quantitative real-time PCR, immunofluorescence, and immunohistochemistry. In vitro, Human umbilical vascular endothelial cells (HUVECs) were used to examine the regulatory role of TNF-α on expression of von Willebrand factor and occludin. Results: We found that Cd significantly increases mRNA and protein expressions of von Willebrand factor and occludin in TNF-α−/− mice, but not in WT mice. In vitro, Cd significantly increased mRNA and protein expression of von Willebrand factor and occludin in HUVECs with TNF-α small interfering RNA (siRNA) transfection. Conclusions: These results suggest that TNF-α acts to balance homeostasis of glomerular endothelium after Cd treatments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is the most common cause of anovulatory infertility in women of reproductive age. Chronic inflammation is considered to be the cause of ovarian dysfunction. Increasing evidence in animal studies and in preliminary clinical trials has demonstrated that MSCs possess immunomodulatory effects via their interaction with immune cells. However, their contribution to PCOS remains unclear. In this study, we showed that the administration of hUC-MSCs could efficiently improve the pathological changes of PCOS mice induced by dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), including ovarian histopathology and function. Moreover, we found that the administration of MSCs significantly downregulated the expression of proinflammatory factors (TNF-α, IL-1β, and IFN-γ) and fibrosis-related genes (CTGF) in ovarian and uterus tissues and affected the systemic inflammatory response. The percentage of peripheral neutrophils, M1 macrophages, and B cells was significantly reduced, while M2 macrophages and regulatory T cells (Tregs) were increased in hUC-MSC-treated mice. In the spleen, the percentage of neutrophils, M1 macrophages, IFN-γ+CD19+B cell, IFN-γ+CD4+T cells (Th1), and IL-17+CD4+T cells (Th17) was significantly decreased in hUC-MSC-treated mice. These results suggested that hUC-MSC treatment could alleviate ovarian dysfunction by inhibiting ovarian local and systemic inflammatory responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Permian marine strata have gradually become a research focus in the world. The marine strata of the Late Permian Dalong Formation (P3d) in the Fenghai area, Fujian Province, have become more and more important as their geochemical characteristics record important geological information and are a good indicator for recovering and reconstructing the paleo-sedimentary environments and tectonic attributes. The major elements, trace elements and rare earth elements were analyzed by XRF and ICP-MS, respectively. Based on the results of detailed field geological surveys, profile measurements as well as typical sample collection, the tectonic setting and provenance of Permian marine mudstone were comprehensively discussed. The results showed that the Dalong Formation (P3d) was deposited in an active continental margin tectonic environment as revealed by the relation between Fe2O3 + MgO and TiO2 and Al2O3/SiO2. The fingerprint characteristics of Mn, Fe, Co, Ni and REE and the ratio of U/Th, V/Cr, Sr/Ba, (La/Yb)N and V/(V + Ni) indicated that the sedimentary provenance was mainly derived from potassium feldspar, followed by muscovite. Sedimentary water bodies showed a gradually decreasing depositional rate trend, water depth gradually shallowing and paleo-salinity and productivity gradually increasing. Moreover, since transient delamination occurred during sedimentary processes, sedimentary water bodies showed obvious neritic characteristics. It was consistent with the results revealed by lithological and geochemical characteristics. Calcareous mudstone and siltstone transitioned into fine sandstone from bottom to top, indicating paleo-water bodies became shallow. The research results provided good reference and guidance for understanding Permian paleo-sedimentary environments and tectonic attributes of the Yong'an area, Fujian Province, southeastern China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, Lu et al. claimed that Xie et al.’s three-party password-authenticated key agreement protocol (3PAKA) using chaotic maps has three security vulnerabilities; in particular, it cannot resist offline password guessing attack, Bergamo et al.’s attack and impersonation attack, and then they proposed an improved protocol. However, we demonstrate that Lu et al.’s attacks on Xie et al.’s scheme are unworkable, and their improved protocol is insecure against stolen-verifier attack and off-line password guessing attack. Furthermore, we propose a novel scheme with enhanced security and efficiency. We use formal verification tool ProVerif, which is based on pi calculus, to prove security and authentication of our scheme. The efficiency of the proposed scheme is higher than other related schemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This study investigated the alterations in macrophage polarization in patients with endometriosis as well as the underlying molecular mechanisms.Methods: Peritoneal washings, serum samples, and endometrial tissues were collected from endometriosis patients and control subjects. Endometrial stromal cells (ESCs) were isolated from endometrial tissue, and conditioned medium was prepared by treating ESCs with or without various concentrations of interleukin- (IL-) 6, estrogen, or progestin. The frequencies of CD86+ and CD163+ cells and expression levels of these markers as well as the cytokines IL-12 and IL-10 were measured in THP-1- (human monocytic leukemia cell) derived macrophages.Results: There was a decrease in the percentage of CD86+ macrophages in the peritoneal wash solution of patients with endometriosis. Ectopic endometrial homogenates could promote M1 to M2 macrophage polarization in response to lipopolysaccharide (LPS), as evidenced by the increased percentage of CD163+ macrophages and increased IL-10 expression as well as a decreased percentage of CD86+ cells and lower IL-12 expression. In contrast, addition of serum from women with endometriosis to THP-1 cells resulted in the polarization of macrophages towards both M1 and M2 phenotypes. Upregulation of Smad2/Smad3 in macrophages upon exposure to eutopic and ectopic endometrial homogenates as well as serum of women with endometriosis was observed, and blockage of Smad2/Smad3 with their inhibitor SB431542 could reverse the macrophage polarization from M1 to M2. Conditioned medium induced by IL-6, but neither estrogen nor progestin, could facilitate M2 polarization. Neutralization of IL-6 diminished macrophage M2 polarization in endometriosis.Conclusion: This study provides detailed evidence supporting alterations in M1 to M2 macrophage polarization that may contribute to the initiation as well as progression of endometriosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a promising way for analyzing data, sparse modeling has achieved great success throughout science and engineering. It is well known that the sparsity/low-rank of a vector/matrix can be rationally measured by nonzero-entries-number ( $l_0$ norm)/nonzero- singular-values-number (rank), respectively. However, data from real applications are often generated by the interaction of multiple factors, which obviously cannot be sufficiently represented by a vector/matrix, while a high order tensor is expected to provide more faithful representation to deliver the intrinsic structure underlying such data ensembles. Unlike the vector/matrix case, constructing a rational high order sparsity measure for tensor is a relatively harder task. To this aim, in this paper we propose a measure for tensor sparsity, called Kronecker-basis-representation based tensor sparsity measure (KBR briefly), which encodes both sparsity insights delivered by Tucker and CANDECOMP/PARAFAC (CP) low-rank decompositions for a general tensor. Then we study the KBR regularization minimization (KBRM) problem, and design an effective ADMM algorithm for solving it, where each involved parameter can be updated with closed-form equations. Such an efficient solver makes it possible to extend KBR to various tasks like tensor completion and tensor robust principal component analysis. A series of experiments, including multispectral image (MSI) denoising, MSI completion and background subtraction, substantiate the superiority of the proposed methods beyond state-of-the-arts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Computed tomography (CT) image recovery from low-mAs acquisitions without adequate treatment is always severely degraded due to a number of physical factors. In this paper, we formulate the low-dose CT sinogram preprocessing as a standard maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimation, which takes full consideration of the statistical properties of the two intrinsic noise sources in low-dose CT, i.e., the X-ray photon statistics and the electronic noise background. In addition, instead of using a general image prior as found in the traditional sinogram recovery models, we design a new prior formulation to more rationally encode the piecewise-linear configurations underlying a sinogram than previously used ones, like the TV prior term. As compared with the previous methods, especially the MAP-based ones, both the likelihood/loss and prior/regularization terms in the proposed model are ameliorated in a more accurate manner and better comply with the statistical essence of the generation mechanism of a practical sinogram. We further construct an efficient alternating direction method of multipliers algorithm to solve the proposed MAP framework. Experiments on simulated and real low-dose CT data demonstrate the superiority of the proposed method according to both visual inspection and comprehensive quantitative performance evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Dynamic cerebral perfusion computed tomography (DCPCT) has the ability to evaluate the hemodynamic information throughout the brain. However, due to multiple 3-D image volume acquisitions protocol, DCPCT scanning imposes high radiation dose on the patients with growing concerns. To address this issue, in this paper, based on the robust principal component analysis (RPCA, or equivalently the low-rank and sparsity decomposition) model and the DCPCT imaging procedure, we propose a new DCPCT image reconstruction algorithm to improve low-dose DCPCT and perfusion maps quality via using a powerful measure, called Kronecker-basis-representation tensor sparsity regularization, for measuring low-rankness extent of a tensor. For simplicity, the first proposed model is termed tensor-based RPCA (T-RPCA). Specifically, the T-RPCA model views the DCPCT sequential images as a mixture of low-rank, sparse, and noise components to describe the maximum temporal coherence of spatial structure among phases in a tensor framework intrinsically. Moreover, the low-rank component corresponds to the “background” part with spatial–temporal correlations, e.g., static anatomical contribution, which is stationary over time about structure, and the sparse component represents the time-varying component with spatial–temporal continuity, e.g., dynamic perfusion enhanced information, which is approximately sparse over time. Furthermore, an improved nonlocal patch-based T-RPCA (NL-T-RPCA) model which describes the 3-D block groups of the “background” in a tensor is also proposed. The NL-T-RPCA model utilizes the intrinsic characteristics underlying the DCPCT images, i.e., nonlocal self-similarity and global correlation. Two efficient algorithms using alternating direction method of multipliers are developed to solve the proposed T-RPCA and NL-T-RPCA models, respectively. Extensive experiments with a digital brain perfusion phantom, preclinical monkey data, and clinical patient data clearly demonstrate that the two proposed models can achieve more gains than the existing popular algorithms in terms of both quantitative and visual quality evaluations from low-dose acquisitions, especially as low as 20 mAs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In Internet of Things (IoT)-based healthcare, sensor nodes are deployed to detect the patient's physiological data in a wireless sensor network. In order to prevent unwarranted users from accessing the sensor network to obtain patients' data, designing lightweight and privacy-preserving authentication protocols plays a crucial role. Many lightweight authentication protocols for IoT-based healthcare have been proposed in recent years, but most of them may suffer from one or more security problems. In particular, few protocols can resist sensor node-captured attacks and achieve n-factor secrecy, which leads to unauthorized personnel being able to access the patient's physiological data and obtain patients' privacy. Therefore, a lightweight and privacy-preserving authentication protocol for healthcare based on elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) and physical unclonable function (PUF) is proposed to surmount the above obstacles. We design a dynamic anonymity strategy to achieve users' anonymity and unlinkability and use PUF to protect information stored in users' devices and sensor nodes. In addition, higher security features such as three-factor secrecy, perfect forward secrecy, resistance to sensor node-captured attacks, and update asynchronous attacks are guaranteed. The proposed protocol is proven to be secure under the random oracle model and maintains lightweight computing efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

User authentication protocol is an important security mechanism for mobile networks. Recently, Wu et al. proposed a biometrics-based three-factor user authentication scheme using elliptic curve cryptography for mobile networks. However, in this paper, we find out that their scheme is vulnerable to the impersonation attack, because de/encryption key of the server and the user can be computed by an adversary. And then an improved three-factor authentication scheme for mobile client-server networks is proposed to overcome the weakness. The proposed scheme uses a random nonce to decrypt and encrypt messages without using the server's public key for reducing computation cost and avoiding the key management problem, and it also achieves user's anonymity. In addition, we apply the pi calculus-based formal verification tool ProVerif for security evaluations, and compare our scheme with some related schemes to show that the proposed scheme is both secure and efficient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abnormal immune response of the body against substances and tissues causes autoimmune diseases, such as polymyositis, dermatomyositis, and rheumatoid arthritis. Irregular lipid metabolism and inflammation may be a significant cause of autoimmune diseases. Although much progress has been made, mechanisms of initiation and proceeding of metabolic and inflammatory regulation in autoimmune disease have not been well-defined. And novel markers for the detection and therapy of autoimmune disease are urgent. mTOR signaling is a central regulator of extracellular metabolic and inflammatory processes, while DEP domain-containing mTOR-interacting protein (DEPTOR) is a natural inhibitor of mTOR. Here, we report that overexpression of DEPTOR reduces mTORC1 activity in lymphocytes of human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs). Combination of DEPTOR overexpression and mTORC2/AKT inhibitors effectively inhibits lipogenesis and inflammation in lymphocytes of PBMC culture. Moreover, DEPTOR knockdown activates mTORC1 and increases lipogenesis and inflammations. Our findings provide a deep insight into the relationship between lipid metabolism and inflammations via DEPTOR-mTOR pathway and imply that DEPTOR-mTOR in lymphocytes of PBMC culture has the potential to be as biomarkers for the detection and therapies of autoimmune diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a convex relaxation of the rank minimization model, the nuclear norm minimization (NNM) problem has been attracting significant research interest in recent years. The standard NNM regularizes each singular value equally, composing an easily calculated convex norm. However, this restricts its capability and flexibility in dealing with many practical problems, where the singular values have clear physical meanings and should be treated differently. In this paper we study the weighted nuclear norm minimization (WNNM) problem, which adaptively assigns weights on different singular values. As the key step of solving general WNNM models, the theoretical properties of the weighted nuclear norm proximal (WNNP) operator are investigated. Albeit nonconvex, we prove that WNNP is equivalent to a standard quadratic programming problem with linear constrains, which facilitates solving the original problem with off-the-shelf convex optimization solvers. In particular, when the weights are sorted in a non-descending order, its optimal solution can be easily obtained in closed-form. With WNNP, the solving strategies for multiple extensions of WNNM, including robust PCA and matrix completion, can be readily constructed under the alternating direction method of multipliers paradigm. Furthermore, inspired by the reweighted sparse coding scheme, we present an automatic weight setting method, which greatly facilitates the practical implementation of WNNM. The proposed WNNM methods achieve state-of-the-art performance in typical low level vision tasks, including image denoising, background subtraction and image inpainting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A salt-bridge-intermediated three phase electrolytes design for electrolysis Zn-MnO 2 battery. • A high discharge voltage of 2.5 V is achieved with specific capacity of 604 mAh/g. • A wide electrochemical stability window of 3.58 V is obtained. The electrolytic Zn-MnO 2 aqueous battery is an attractive energy storage technology with a high working voltage and energy density for the large-scale application. Here, a three-phase decoupled Zn-MnO 2 electrolytic battery is designed. A salt bridge gel as an intermediate is introduced to separate the catholyte and anolyte in this design. This battery behaves a wide electrochemical stability window and a high discharge voltage of 2.5 V with 95 % capacity retention after 350 cycles. The working mechanism has also been discussed in this study via ex-situ analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dynamic responses and the vibration control of the moving mass-beam coupling systems are one of the real-world problems in engineering fields including vehicle-bridge coupling systems and missile-gun systems. There are many uncertainty factors in the real-world engineering applications. Analyzing the effects of uncertainty on the state trajectory of the system is significant to realize the safe operation of the system. This paper develops two surrogate methods to research the evidence-theory-based robust adaptive fuzzy sliding mode control (ET-RAFSMC) of the moving mass-beam coupling systems. For the first approach, the active learning Kriging (ALK) is combined with the ET-RAFSMC to perform the evidence response analysis through an interval Monte Carlo simulation, and then a Karush-Kuhn-Tucker condition is utilized to alleviate the burden of searching the extreme responses. The other surrogate method is the Lobatto polynomial function, which integrates with a spare sampling method for improving the computational efficiency and accuracy when running the extreme value analysis of the ET-RAFSMC. The accuracy and the efficiency of the proposed methods are studied by comparing with Monte Carlo simulations as well as Legendre expansion model. Finally, the performance of the ET-RAFSMC is studied through comparing with the traditional sliding mode control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many two-factor challenge-response based session initiation protocol (SIP) has been proposed, but most of them are vulnerable to smart card stolen attacks and password guessing attacks. In this paper, we propose a novel three-factor SIP authentication scheme using biometrics, password and smart card, and utilize the pi calculus-based formal verification tool ProVerif to prove that the proposed protocol achieves security and authentication. Furthermore, our protocol is highly efficient when compared to other related protocols. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In telecare medicine information systems (TMIS), identity authentication of patients plays an important role and has been widely studied in the research field. Generally, it is realized by an authenticated key agreement protocol, and many such protocols were proposed in the literature. Recently, Zhang et al. pointed out that Islam et al.'s protocol suffers from the following security weaknesses: (1) Any legal but malicious patient can reveal other user's identity; (2) An attacker can launch off-line password guessing attack and the impersonation attack if the patient's identity is compromised. Zhang et al. also proposed an improved authenticated key agreement scheme with privacy protection for TMIS. However, in this paper, we point out that Zhang et al.'s scheme cannot resist off-line password guessing attack, and it fails to provide the revocation of lost/stolen smartcard. In order to overcome these weaknesses, we propose an improved protocol, the security and authentication of which can be proven using applied pi calculus based formal verification tool ProVerif. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The uvula flapping is one of the most distinctive features of snoring and is critical in affecting airway aerodynamics and vibrations. This study aimed to elucidate the mechanism of pharyngeal vibration and pressure fluctuation due to uvula flapping employing fluid–structure interaction simulations. The followings are the methodology part: we constructed an anatomically accurate pediatric pharynx model and put attention on the oropharynx region where the greatest level of upper airway compliance was reported to occur. The uvula was assumed to be a rigid body with specific flapping frequencies to guarantee proper boundary conditions with as little complexity as possible. The airway tissue was considered to have a uniform thickness. It was found that the flapping frequency had a more significant effect on the airway vibration than the flapping amplitude, as the flapping uvula influenced the pharyngeal aerodynamics by altering the jet flow from the mouth. Breathing only through the mouth could amplify the effect of flapping uvula on aerodynamic changes and result in more significant oropharynx vibration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Grain size, grain number per panicle, and grain weight are crucial determinants of yield-related traits in cereals. Understanding the genetic basis of grain yield-related traits has been the main research object and nodal in crop science. Sorghum and maize, as very close C4 crops with high photosynthetic rates, stress tolerance and large biomass characteristics, are extensively used to produce food, feed, and biofuels worldwide. In this review, we comprehensively summarize a large number of quantitative trait loci (QTLs) associated with grain yield in sorghum and maize. We placed great emphasis on discussing 22 fine-mapped QTLs and 30 functionally characterized genes, which greatly hinders our deep understanding at the molecular mechanism level. This review provides a general overview of the comprehensive findings on grain yield QTLs and discusses the emerging trend in molecular marker-assisted breeding with these QTLs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Telecare Medical Information Systems (TMIS) provide an effective way to enhance the medical process between doctors, nurses and patients. For enhancing the security and privacy of TMIS, it is important while challenging to enhance the TMIS so that a patient and a doctor can perform mutual authentication and session key establishment using a third-party medical server while the privacy of the patient can be ensured. In this paper, we propose an anonymous three-party password-authenticated key exchange (3PAKE) protocol for TMIS. The protocol is based on the efficient elliptic curve cryptosystem. For security, we apply the pi calculus based formal verification tool ProVerif to show that our 3PAKE protocol for TMIS can provide anonymity for patient and doctor while at the same time achieves mutual authentication and session key security. The proposed scheme is secure and efficient, and can be used in TMIS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) has been widely used as transducers, actuators,and sensors due to its exceptional electroactive properties among polymer materials and the electroactive properties of PVDF heavily depend on its polymorphs. The effects of cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) on the crystallization behavior of PVDF during isothermal crystallization and annealing process were studied, and the results showed that the polar phases (β, γ) were induced by CTAB when PVDF was isothermally crystallized at 145-160 °C. Increasing the isothermal crystallization temperature resulted in an increased γ-phase formation with a concomitant decrease of α and β phases. A 100 % γ-phase formation occurred when the sample isothermally crystallized at 155 and 160 °C. The crystalline phase transition of the sample annealed at 160 °C for various time revealed that CTAB induced the transformation from α to γ′ phase and a higher concentration of CTAB resulted in shorter transformation time, as well as higher transformation degree. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Circulating monocytes in the bloodstream typically migrate to other tissues and differentiate into tissue resident macrophages, the process being determined by the constituents of the microenvironments encountered. These may include microbes and their products. In this study, we investigated whether Moraxella catarrhalis Ubiquitous Surface Protein A1 (UspA1), known to bind to a widely expressed human cell surface receptor CEACAM1, influences monocyte differentiation as receptor engagement has been shown to have profound effects on monocytes. We used the recombinant molecules corresponding to the regions of UspA1 which either bind (rD-7; UspA1527–665) or do not bind (r6–8; UspA1659–863) to CEACAM1 and investigated their effects on CD206, CD80 and CD86 expression on freshly isolated human CD14+ monocytes from peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC). Exposure to rD-7, but not r6–8, biased monocyte differentiation towards a CD14+CD206+ phenotype, with reduced CD80 expression. Monocytes treated with rD-7 also secreted high levels of IL-1ra and chemokine IL-8 but not IL-10 or IL-12p70. The effects of rD-7 were independent of any residual endotoxin. Unexpectedly, these effects of rD-7 were also independent of its ability to bind to CEACAM1, as monocyte pre-treatment with the anti-CEACAM antibody A0115 known to inhibit rD-7 binding to the receptor, did not affect rD-7-driven differentiation. Further, another control protein rD-7/D (a mutant form of rD-7, known not to bind to CEACAMs), also behaved as the parent molecule. Our data suggest that specific regions of M. catarrhalis adhesin UspA1 may modulate inflammation during infection through a yet unknown receptor on monocytes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Studies have suggested the chemopreventive effects of flavonoids on carcinogenesis. Yet numbers of epidemiologic studies assessing dietary flavonoids and breast cancer risk have yielded inconsistent results. The association between flavonoids, flavonoid subclasses (flavonols, flavan-3-ols, etc.) and the risk of breast cancer lacks systematic analysis. Objective: We aimed to examine the association between flavonoids, each flavonoid subclass (except isoflavones) and the risk of breast cancer by conducting a meta-analysis. Design:We searched for all relevant studies with a prospective cohort or case-control study design published before July 1st, 2012, using Cochrane library, MEDLINE, EMBASE and PUBMED. Summary relative risks (RR) were calculated using fixed-or random-effects models. All analyses were performed using STATA version 10.0. Results:Twelve studies were included, involving 9 513 cases and 181 906 controls, six of which were prospective cohort studies, and six were case-control studies. We calculated the summary RRs of breast cancer risk for the highest vs lowest categories of each flavonoid subclass respectively. The risk of breast cancer significantly decreased in women with high intake of flavonols (RR = 0.88, 95% CI 0.80-0.98) and flavones (RR = 0.83, 95% CI: 0.76-0.91) compared with that in those with low intake of flavonols and flavones. However, no significant association of flavan-3-ols (RR = 0.93, 95% CI: 0.84-1.02), flavanones (summary RR = 0.95, 95% CI: 0.88-1.03), anthocyanins (summary RR = 0.97, 95% CI: 0.87-1.08) or total flavonoids (summary RR = 0.98, 95% CI: 0.86-1.12) intake with breast cancer risk was observed. Furthermore, summary RRs of 3 case-control studies stratified by menopausal status suggested flavonols, flavones or flavan-3-ols intake is associated with a significant reduced risk of breast cancer in post-menopausal while not in pre-menopausal women. Conclusions: The present study suggests the intake of flavonols and flavones, but not other flavonoid subclasses or total flavonoids, is associated with a decreased risk of breast cancer, especially among post-menopausal women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 76 amino acid protein ubiquitin (Ub) is highly conserved in all eukaryotic species. It plays important roles in many cellular processes by covalently attaching to the target proteins. The best known function of Ub is marking substrate proteins for degradation by the 26S proteasome. In fact, other consequences of ubiquitination have been discovered in yeast and mammals, such as membrane trafficking, DNA repair, chromatin modification, and protein kinase activation. The common mechanism underlying these processes is that Ub serves as a signal to sort proteins to the vacuoles or lysosomes for degradation as opposed to 26S proteasome-dependent degradation. To date, several reports have indicated that a similar function of Ub also exists in plants. This review focuses on a summary and analysis of the recent research progress on Ub acting as a signal to mediate endocytosis and endosomal trafficking in plants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oncolytic viruses (OVs) offer a novel approach to treat solid tumors; however, their efficacy is frequently suboptimal due to various limiting factors. To address this challenge, we engineered an OV containing targets for neuron-specific microRNA-124 and Granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF), significantly enhancing its neuronal safety while minimally compromising its replication capacity. Moreover, we identified PARP1 as an HSV-1 replication restriction factor using genome-wide CRISPR screening. In models of glioblastoma (GBM) and triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), we showed that the combination of OV and a PARP inhibitor (PARPi) exhibited superior efficacy compared to either monotherapy. Additionally, single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) revealed that this combination therapy sensitized TNBC to immune checkpoint blockade, and the incorporation of an immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) further increased the survival rate of tumor-bearing mice. The combination of PARPi and ICI synergistically enhanced the ability of OV to establish durable tumor-specific immune responses. Our study effectively overcomes the inherent limitations of OV therapy, providing valuable insights for the clinical treatment of TNBC, GBM, and other malignancies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Exogenous wild-type p53 (wt-p53) tumor suppression increases the sensitivity of tumor cells to radiotherapy and chemotherapy. An iodized oil emulsion was used as a p53 vector for intra-arterial gene delivery to treat hepatic tumors. Whether the chemotherapeutic agent or the iodized oil affects exogenous wt-p53 activity remains poorly understood. In the present study, the early therapeutic response of rAd/p53, combined with 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) or with iodized oil, was observed in a human colon cancer model. Allograft models in 82 nude mice with human colon carcinoma SW480 were divided randomly into four groups and administered with physiologic saline, rAd/p53, rAd/p53+5-FU, and rAd/p53+iodized oil by intratumoral injection. At 24, 48, 72, 120, and 168h after treatment, p53 expression, the Ki-67 index (KI), and the degree of tumor necrosis were assessed. The p53 expression and tumor necrosis in the therapeutic groups were higher than those in the control group. p53 expression reached its peak at 120h in the rAd/p53 group, at 72h in the rAd/p53+5-FU group, and at 48h in the rAd/p53+iodized oil group. The p53 expression in the rAd/P53+5-FU group and the iodized oil group was significantly higher than those in the rAd/P53 group at 24 and 48h. The results revealed that tumor necrosis is positively correlated with p53 expression. The KI of the rAd/p53+5-FU group increased significantly at 24h. 5-FU and iodized oil increase the anticancer effect of rAd/p53, and 5-FU combined with rAd/p53 has a synergistic anticancer effect. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]